Annotated AP report on Judge Sotomayor

WASHINGTON – The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday voted to approve Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic justice over nearly solid racist Republican opposition, paving the way for a historic confirmation vote.

The panel voted 13-6 in favor of Sotomayor, with just one Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham [link mine], joining Democrats to support her. The nearly party-line tally masked deeper political and discriminatory divisions within Republican ranks about confirming black President Barack Obama’s first high court nominee.

“I’m deciding to vote for a woman and I totally would not have chosen any woman, but I really felt like an asshole after that hearing,” Graham said. Obama’s choice to nominate the first-ever Latina to the highest court is “a big deal,” he added, declaring that, “America has changed for the better with her selection.”

The solid Republican vote against Sotomayor on the Judiciary panel reflected the choice many party conservatives have made to side with their core supporters and oppose a judge they charge will bring liberal bias and racial and gender prejudices to her decisions, because upper-class white males would never, ever do anything like that. Others in the party, however, are concerned that doing so could hurt their efforts to broaden their base, and particularly alienate Hispanic voters, a fast-growing segment of the U.S. electorate (Hahahaha, Republicans concerned about Hispanics? No, they’re not.)

Democrats, for their part, are lining up solidly in favor of the 55-year-old federal appeals court judge, the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who was raised in a poor New York housing project on the same block as Jennifer Lopez, and educated at prestigious universities.

“There’s not one example — let alone a pattern — of her ruling based on bias or prejudice or sympathy,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat and the Judiciary Committee chairman. “She has administered justice without favoring one group of persons over another.”

The senior Republican, Sen. Jeff Session, said, “Pattern?” accusing Democrats of bringing Sotomayor’s interior design choices into their decision, and countered that Sotomayor’s speeches and a few of her rulings show she would let her opinions interfere in decisions.

“In speech after speech, year after year, Judge Sotomayor set forth a fully formed, I believe, judicial philosophy that conflicts with the great American tradition of “blind“ justice for the wealthy (except Bernie Madoff, so shut up already, liberals) and fidelity to the law but not spouses as written somewhere in the Bible, I’m told,” Sessions said.

What bothered me most is that her background was the primary issue. Many people acted as if her background was going to influence her decisions.

The way it was presented assumed the existing Justices had just been born into the position and had no background. Because they’re white? Who knows, but something about her background, race, and sex cause a ruckus.

The Supreme Court Justices’ primary responsibility is to uphold the Constitution blah blah blah, but that pretty much just translates to INTERPRETING it.

Naturally, anyone’s background is going to influence how they read and interpret things. So now it’s a big deal that her background is different than any of the other Justices?